Tom Cotton

A new poll by the New York Times has Sen. Mark Pryor 10 points ahead of Rep. Tom Cotton, 46-36. Even with that result, the RCP average (which includes three additional polls taken since February) has Pryor ahead by only 2.2 points. Thus, the Times poll is, by definition, an outlier. But does it nonetheless reflect the current state of the race? I don’t think so. As Bill Kristol points »

You can tell Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who owes his office to the fact that his daddy was Senator, is desperate when he accuses Tom Cotton of a sense of “entitlement” to a Senate seat. Who does Pryor think he is—Chelsea Clinton? If you want to see why Tom Cotton is going to wipe the floor with Senator Posterior Pryor in November, check out this awesome rebuttal—but in order to »

This Politico story about Sen. Mark Pryor’s reelection pitch goes on for the two pages but never gets beyond the fact that Pryor’s father was a very popular politician. After serving for almost 12 years in the Senate, Mark Pryor should be embarrassed that his main claim to fame is that he’s David Pryor’s son. But when it comes to clinging to office, Pryor is probably beyond feeling embarrassed. And »

While I was away seeking (and finding) global warmth in the Dominican Republic, voters in Northeast Arkansas sent an ominous message to Democrats by overwhelmingly electing a Republican in a special State Senate election. The Republican, John Cooper, captured 57 percent of the vote to win a seat (District 21) that has never been held by a member of his party. The race centered on the issue of whether to »

Stu Rothenberg has moved the Arkansas Senate race between Sen. Mark Pryor and Rep. Tom Cotton from “toss-up” to “tilts Republican.” His reasoning is as follows: Currently, we seem to be headed toward a typical midterm election, with unhappy voters regarding Election Day as an opportunity to make a statement about the president. With Obama’s job rating in the upper 30s and low 40s in national polls — and lower »

National Journal takes an interesting approach to its examination of Tom Cotton in his race to unseat incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Pryor in Arkansas. Marin Cogan asks “Is Tom Cotton too good to be true?” It’s a loaded question, like “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Cogan frames her profile of Tom this way: On a recent late-fall Saturday, Barbara Deuschle, a local restaurant owner, was recounting her first impression »

Sen. Mark Pryor’s vote in favor of Obamacare, without which that legislation would not have passed the Senate, should be enough to cause his defeat in the 2014 Arkansas race Senate. And, at the end of the day, I suspect it will be. However, there is also the matter of President Obama’s judicial nominees. Pryor has not voted against the confirmation of a single one. Not even far left-winger Goodwin »

I’ve just returned from a Tom Cotton fundraising event. The outlook is pretty good for Tom’s bid to unseat Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, a bid that probably must succeed if Republicans are going to regain control of the Senate in the 2014 election. Tom cited three recent polls of his race, each of which contains essentially the same good news. A poll by Arkansas Talk Business-Hendrix College shows basically a »

Our friend Tom Cotton was one of the 87 Republicans who voted for “compromise” legislation that ended the partial government shutdown. Some conservatives are unhappy about his vote. One of our readers, a very smart activist conservative, has complained in no uncertain terms. I think that Tom did the right thing when he voted “yes.” The partial shutdown was injuring Republican prospects with no realistic hope of forcing the administration »

One of the strongest-sounding arguments against intervening in Syria is the fear that, by “degrading” Assad’s power, we will increase the odds that jihadist, al Qaeda affiliated rebels will come to power. It was this fear that caused me to suggest last year that a stalemate between Assad and the rebels might be the best outcome. Only after the tide of the civil war seemed to turn in favor of »

During a congressional hearing last week, Tom Cotton — who served in our last two wars (real wars, not bombing campaigns) — said that he has “grown weary of the president’s war-weariness.” But Obama isn’t the only one who is war weary; America as a whole is. And who can blame us? Consider: years of rationing, with fresh vegetables available only to those who grow them in victory gardens. Young »

Sen. Mark Pryor has come out against authorizing President Obama to take military action in Syria. Rep. Tom Cotton, who seeks Pryor’s Senate seat, is already on the record in strong support of U.S. intervention. Pryor probably regards this issue as a godsend. Public opinion opposes attacking the Assad regime, and I assume that this is the case even in Arkansas. So right now, Pryor benefits from voting “no.” How »

During yesterday’s House Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria, Tom Cotton asked Secretary of State Kerry and the two other administration witnesses about the connection, in the context of the contemplated air strike, between President Obama’s stated goals of (1) responding to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons and (2) seeing Assad removed from power. Kerry responded with what has become his mantra — the two goals are separate »

In this Washington Post op-ed, our friend Tom Cotton and his House colleague (and fellow veteran) Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) support the use of force against the Assad regime in response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons. They make three arguments. The first is based on U.S. credibility: Obama drew [a] “red line” a year ago. . . .With or without that comment, our enemies and allies would still be »

Politico serves up a piece about Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who faces a formidable challenge from our friend Tom Cotton. One doesn’t have to read between the lines to see that the author, Manu Raju, has doubts about Pryor’s re-election prospects. Pryor tells Politico that his path to victory rests on making the case that he’s not a party line Obama loyalist, but rather the kind of conservative Democrat that »

The official Tom Cotton campaign is not even 24 hours old, and already the bandwagon is rolling. Mark Pryor is saddled with saying that “Obamacare has been an amazing success story so far.” (More Pryor video on this subject here.) The Club for Growth is out with an ad already: If this keeps up, even the Most Interesting Man in the World is going to get in on the act: »

Tom Cotton made his official announcement of candidacy for the Senate in Arkansas tonight. We’ll post video when we can, but here’s the excerpt from the speech that, repeated over the next 14 months, is going to end Mark Pryor’s political career: Mark’s been running for office for almost 25 years. Every time, he says, “Arkansas comes first.” It’s not so. Over the last four-and-a-half years, for Mark Pryor, Barack »